Phone calls for as low as $.02/minute worldwide!

What I think: Having a low cost way stay in touch with people you care about who live overseas is a stellar idea. I'm embarrassed to tell you that either inertia or just plain laziness kept me from acting on this kind of service before. And it's ridiculous that I haven't, considering how often we call Australia, where one of my husband's daughters lives.

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Here's how it works: First, you set up an account with Penny Talk, and add a certain amount of money to your account. As you make calls, charges are deducted from your account balance. You can add more funds to your account at any time or go for the auto-recharge option, using your credit card.

There are three fees:

the monthly charge of $.99 cents to join the PennyTalk service

a per-minute charge, which for most countries is $.02 per minute

a flat-fee connection charge of $.49 that you pay no matter how long (or short) you talk

For example, a half hour call to Australia at a cost of $.02 a minute, plus 49 cents for the connection charge, equals $1.09 for the entire call. Compare this to what our regular long distance carrier (AT&T) charges, which is $2.76 per minute. That comes to $82.80 for the same half hour call -- and that's calling at the cheapest time/rate!

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FYI, I did learn something when that's worth remembering:

READ YOUR PHONE BILLS CAREFULLY. One thing you'll undoubtedly see is a "universal connectivity fee" that amounts to about 11.3% of your total bill. I called the 800 number to find out what this fee was, but without an advanced degree in telecommunications, I simply didn't understand their explanation. What I did get, loud and clear, is that with or without any overseas calls, that 11.3% gets charged anyway.

If you're interested, go to - www.PennyTalk.com to get full details on this service and rates to over 250 countries.